Whistle-blower laws to be ‘best practice’

New whistle blower laws come as federal Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, QC, announced he had shelved controversial anti-discrimination laws to enable more “detailed work” to be done on them by his department.
Photo: Andrew Meares

by
Marcus Priest

Public servants will be able to leak confidential material to the media only in “exceptional circumstances" under whistle-blower laws to be introduced to federal Parliament on Thursday.

The introduction of the legislation comes nearly five years after Labor first promised new whistle-blower protection in the lead-up to the 2007 election campaign. It came as federal Attorney-General
Mark Dreyfus
, QC, announced he had shelved controversial anti-discrimination laws to enable more “detailed work" to be done on them by his department.

Instead, Mr Dreyfus said he would proceed with legislation to protect Australians against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity and intersex status.

Mr Dreyfus chaired a parliamentary committee in 2008 which recommended the introduction of public interest disclosure legislation to “promote integrity in public administration and support open and accountable government". But since then the proposed reform has languished.

On Wednesday, Mr Dreyfus denied the bill’s introduction was unrelated to the fate of the media reforms which need the support of crossbench members to be passed in the House of Representatives.

Tasmanian independent
Andrew Wilkie
initially indicated on Wednesday he might be willing to support those reforms in return for support for his own private member’s bill improving whistle-blower protection.

Under the bill to be introduced, a detailed set of procedures will be prescribed which whistle-blowers must follow before than can take their concerns to the media. They must first raise concerns internally with their supervisor. If dissatisfied, a whistle-blower can then approach the Ombudsman or the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security.

Griffith University professor of public policy and law, AJ Brown, said that the bill’s introduction brought the government one step closer to fulfilling its promise of the world’s “best practice" whistle-blower protection for federal public servants.